A portfolio of my past writing, and new stories as I develop them. Almost always deliberately funny.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Trickster Tales: "Pranksters: Making Mischief in the Modern World"

Pranksters:
Making Mischief in the Modern World

Kembrew
McLeod

2014

New
York University Press

New
York, London

By
BRAD WEISMANN

Nobody
likes a smartass.

Pranks
are often thought of as a low form of humor, ranged down there with puns and practical
jokes. However, Kembrew McLeod’s comprehensive and thought-provoking history of
pranking ranks it much more highly. Pranking runs through modern history like a
fault line of sardonic disorder, and McLeod demonstrates admirably the great,
society-changing effects some of it has caused, as well as the damage and
destruction that other examples have wrought.

McLeod’s
wide net takes in all activities designed to make fools of society at large. He
marks his start at the point where broader, faster forms of communication –
pamphlets, almanacs, and proto-newspapers – lent themselves to the pointed
attack, the spoof, and the literary hotfoot. The gamut begins with Jonathan
Swift’s “Modest Proposal,” and wends its way to today through a variety of forms
and frames, motivated by everything from sheer criminal intent to the most
idealistic attempts to remake society.

A
short list of topics and characters covered should in itself propel the curious
into its satisfying pages: Benjamin Franklin, P.T. Barnum, the anti-Spiritualism
movement, yellow journalism, the Merry Pranksters and the Chicago 8, “Paul is
dead”, Andy Kaufman, and today’s hackers and groups like Anonymous. All relate
to the intent of invoking a cathartic rethinking of a culture’s shared
assumptions, waking it from its addled distractions.

While
it seems that the primary motivation of a prankster is to crack a joke, McLeod
makes it very clear that, by and large, society rarely gets it (and if it does, it tries to tear the perpetrator to shreds). Indeed, many of
the fonts of crazy conspiracy theories – documents pretending to pertain to the
Rosicrucians, Illuminati, Freemasons, the “Inner Circle” – were written as humor,
satire, parody, all unfortunately taken at face value and run with by those that are inclined
to paranoia. Even more disturbing are his accounts of the
life-and-career-ruining “rumor panics,” such as the
satanic-messages-in-rock-songs and the repressed-memory-child-abuse cases of
more recent decades. In McLeod’s universe, the human mind doesn’t need much
tinder to spark an outbreak of fear, hate, and ugly behavior.

McLeod
is the perfect person to tackle the topic, as he himself has participated and/or
perpetrated some mind games of his own. Most notably, he made Michelle Bachmann
feel uncomfortable in the guise of a gay robot – which makes him A-Number-One
in my book. He is able to expertly dissect not only the mechanics and thrust of
the pranks, but analyze the repercussions and the effectiveness of the actions
as well, providing a micro- as well as macro-focus.

It’s
an examination, not a celebration. The moral ambiguities of pranking are in
full view here. Still, there’s a sense here that the author sees pranking at
its best as a creative kind of non-violent civil disobedience, justified in the
face of a domineering state that brainwashes its inhabitants with propaganda of
the kind pioneered by Edward Bernays, which can be construed as a kind of
pranking itself. McLeod quotes media critic Stuart Ewen, who “characterizes
Bernays’s ideal model of communication as merely a hallucination of democracy: ‘A
highly educated class of opinion-molding tacticians is continuously at work,
analyzing the social terrain and adjusting the mental scenery from which the
public mind, with its limited intellect, derives its opinions.’”

Given
this imbalance of power, “Pranking” can be read as a testament to the possibilities
of the intelligent and humorous revolutionary. As a study, it soars right up
into my bookcase alongside other critical studies of this subject such as Alex
Boese’s “Museum of Hoaxes,” H. Allen Smith’s “The Compleat Practical Joker,”
and Mackay’s “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.”

About Me

This award-winning independent writer and editor returned to the place where he grew up after years as a wandering comedian. It's beautiful here. He served in a variety of capacities for the Boulder International Film Festival from 2006 through 2014. His writing portfolio includes stories written on topics ranging from grand opera to midget wrestling, for a diverse array of magazines, newspapers and websites worldwide -- including Film International, Westword, Boulder Magazine, Power Pickin', Parterre, Understanding Our Gifted, Movie Habit, Backstage, Muso, 5280, EnCompass, Senses of Cinema, Boulder Jewish News and . . . Philly Sports Faithful, for some reason. Also poet, playwright, screenwriter, blah blah blah. Check out his work at brad-weismann.com, filmpatrol.com and obitpatrol.com.

PM Dawn; Of the Heart Of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience

Ramones, Ramonesmania

Richard and Linda Thompson, Pour Down Like Silver

Richard Pryor, Wanted

Richard Thompson, Henry the Human Fly

Robert Klein, New Teeth

Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma/Carousel/The King and I

Roger Miller, The Return of Roger Miller

Rolling Stones, Some Girls

Shostakovich, Symphony #4 - Inbal, Wiener Symphoniker

Sibelius, Symphony 5 (final version) -- Vanska, Lahti Symphony

Sly and the Family Stone, Anthology

Steeley Dan, Pretzel Logic

Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life

Stravinsky, Les Noces -- Bernstein

Strength in Numbers, The Telluride Sessions

Talking Heads, Fear of Music

The Kingston Trio, The Kingston Trio

The Kinks, Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One

The Mothers, Cruisin' with Ruben and the Jets

The Mothers, We're Only in It for the Money

The Velvet Underground & Niko

Tom Tom Club, Tom Tom Club

Tom Waits, Nighthawks at the Diner

Uncle Earl, Waterloo Tennessee

Van Morrison, Beautiful Vision

Village Music of Bulgaria/Bulgarian Folk Music

Vivaldi, The Four Seasons -- Zuckerman

Was (Not Was), Born to Laugh at Tornadoes

Ween, Chocolate and Cheese

Willie Dixon, The Chess Box

Willie Nelson, Shotgun Willie

XTC, English Settlement

" . . . you've got to stand up for the imaginative world, the imaginative element in the human personality, because I think that's constantly threatened . . . People do have imagination and sensibilities, and I think that does need constant exposition." -- John Read

"To disseminate my subjective thoughts and ideas, I stealthily hide them in a cloak of entertaining storytelling, since the depth of my thinking, shallow at best, might be challenged by erudite experts." -- Curt Siodmak